When Bobby Davis told Syracuse University six years ago he had been molested by a men’s assistant basketball coach, the university dispatched its main lawyers to investigate.

Now that investigation of former associate head coach Bernie Fine is under scrutiny itself. Abuse victims advocates and the local district attorney are questioning how thoroughly SU’s law firm investigated a popular coach of a team that two years earlier had won the national championship.

SU ordered an investigation from the law firm that relies on SU for $2 million a year in legal fees, and the school is being criticized for using lawyers instead of sexual abuse professionals to investigate. A national organization that seeks to improve the way college boards of trustees govern said it was a breach of duty that SU trustees were kept in the dark about the investigation.

SU says it ended the investigation because it could find no corroborating evidence. According to the version portrayed in Cantor’s statements, the university and its lawyers — Bond, Schoeneck & King — missed the strongest piece of corroborating material Davis had: an audiotape of hims and Fine’s wife, Laurie. In the tape made in 2002, Laurie Fine seems unfazed when Davis says Bernie Fine abused him.

Cantor said in the USA Today letter that if she had heard that tape in 2005, she would have fired Bernie Fine on the spot. When she finally did hear it through the news media Nov. 27, she fired Fine that day.

By the time SU started investigating in 2005, Davis had already provided copies to the newspaper and ESPN. This year, when city police took an interest, Davis gave them a copy, too. That means of the four organizations that looked into Davis’ claims, only the university was unable to get the tape.

SU did not notify police or the district attorney’s office of its investigation in 2005. It appears from Cantor’s statements that the university relied on Davis’ account that he had already spoken to police three years earlier. At the time, Davis knew that police had spoken with him briefly and did not pursue his complaint.

There’s no evidence that SU’s lawyers tried to confirm that; city police Chief Frank Fowler and Fitzpatrick said SU never contacted them about the investigation. Fowler said he first heard of the report when SU gave police a copy Nov. 17.

What is known is that sometime in 2005, Davis, a former ball boy who once lived in the basement of Fine’s home, told SU officials Fine had molested him in the home and on basketball road trips. Davis had told his story before: in 2002 to the city police; and in 2002 and 2003 to The Post-Standard and ESPN. Police had said the statute of limitations had run out, and news organizations decided after investigating that they didn’t have enough evidence to publish.

When Davis contacted SU in 2005, SU officials turned over the investigation to the Syracuse law firm that did most of its legal work:
Bond, Schoeneck & King. Over the course of four months, Cantor has said, lawyers interviewed “several” people, including Davis.

Head basketball coach Jim Boeheim told ESPN that Davis gave SU the names of four other possible victims, and none corroborated his story.

The law firm finished the investigation and the university took no action, Cantor said in a statement Nov. 18, “as we were unable to find any corroboration of the allegations.”

On Nov. 27, Cantor, the chancellor since 2004, added that “no other witnesses came forward during the university investigation, and those who felt they knew Bernie best could not imagine what has unfolded.”

Fitzpatrick, in a story published Friday in The New York Times, said that nothing in the 2005 SU report showed that the Bond, Schoeneck & King lawyers had “an expertise in investigating sexual abuse.”

“You would be hard pressed to say that the thing was investigated the way that it should have been in 2005,” Fitzpatrick told the Times.

SU gave Fitzpatrick a copy of the 2005 report Nov. 18, the day after ESPN made the allegations public in an interview with Davis. Fitzpatrick declined to talk to The Post-Standard for this story.

Two other men, including Davis’ stepbrother, came forward last month to say they were also molested by Fine.

Fine has maintained his innocence and has not been charged with any crimes. Law enforcement authorities have searched his home, office and locker.

Kathryn Kuehnle, a Florida psychologist and author of books on how to assess child sex abuse allegations, said attorneys aren’t qualified to do the extensive research and questioning needed in cases like this.

“Attorneys interviewing alleged victims and making a decision about whether the allegation was true or not would be like me defending someone in court,” Kuehnle said. “That’s not my area of expertise.”

Bond, Schoeneck & King has a close relationship with SU. In the past decade, the law firm has earned $20 million in legal fees from the university, according to SU’s tax records. BS&K lawyer Thomas Evans is a senior vice president and general counsel at SU.

“When an institution has a stake in the outcome of the investigation, they are by nature the last ones who should be conducting the investigation,” said Mark Serrano, a public relations expert and an advocate for child sex abuse victims. “You can’t help but look at (the investigation) and think it was way too easy for them to make the conclusions they made.”

BS&K lawyers did not return phone calls.

SU last month issued a statement saying it has now hired an outside law firm — Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison of New York City — to “review our procedures in responding to the initial allegations,” according to a Cantor statement.

“They’ve gone for the very top,” said Cynthia Bowman, a law professor at Cornell University. “You don’t pick Paul, Weiss unless you’re worried. They’re a really prominent, pre-eminent New York City law firm.”

The 700-lawyer firm represents a who’s who of major companies, including Citicorp. It has worked on internal investigations for giant mortgage lender Fannie Mae and the Boeing aircraft company.

The company’s website says that successful internal investigations “can help to deter regulatory intervention and limit the company’s exposure to lawsuits.”

Victims’ advocate Serrano said he wasn’t impressed by the hiring of Paul, Weiss.

“First (SU) hired lawyers to conduct an investigation, and now they’ve hired lawyers to investigate the investigation?” Serrano said. “It sounds to me like circular logic.”

Fitzpatrick has criticized SU for not informing his office of the allegations when Davis came to the university in 2005.

In the USA Today letter, Cantor said SU did not go to Fitzpatrick because Davis told the university he had already gone to the police. “In our experience, the police and the DA are synonymous,” Cantor wrote.

Cantor also said in that letter that SU “learned that the police had been informed in 2002 of the allegations,” but did not say who informed SU or whether SU officials made any attempt to confirm that with police or the district attorney.

It’s also not clear how much, if anything, SU’s board of trustees knew of the investigation. The board has 70 members who meet twice a year, but the 16-member executive committee meets more often and has the power to make decisions on behalf of the entire board.

When contacted by The Post-Standard, three of the executive committee members from 2004-2005 said they knew nothing of the investigation.

“Bernie Fine was never, ever mentioned in any discussion at the board,” recalled Daniel Mezzalingua, one of five vice chairs of the board then and a nonvoting trustee now. “I didn’t even know an investigation was going on.”

The board chairman at the time, John Couri, declined through a college spokesman to comment.

The failure to be aware of such serious allegations is a violation of the board’s duty, said a spokesman for the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

“It should absolutely have been involved in this,” said Michael Poliakoff, vice president of policy for the council. “At the very least the chancellor they appointed as their person to implement the board’s policy (should have given) them a full report of a major issue of this nature.”